THE BROAD BARREN. 
YOT truly barren indeed, do we consider these interesting 
and often attractive lowlands. In many of them we 
see much that is pleasing and which invites our attention. 
The one we are pleased to speak of, is to us, full of interest 
winter or summer. Ona sunny day in winter it shows a gay 
and cheerful picture, from the many belts and clumps of 
pretty evergreens scattered through it upon the more slightly 
elevated spots among the many dwarfed spruce and juniper, 
their bright green contrasting beautifully with the white 
glistening crust upon the deep snow; and this is not a barren 
waste surely, when we consider the immense number of 
dwarfed trees upon which grow each year, quantities of moss, 
for the caribou to feed upon. Then also its moist, spongy 
bottom is rich with mosses and lichen, which they love so well 
that they scrape off the snow with their cloven feet, to feed 
upon it, until the snow is deep and crusted upon its surface. 
Then they creep about upon its frozen crust feeding from off 
the trees again, getting better picking than at first, from off 
the ground, then higher and yet higher as the snow deepens 
and new crusts form, until many a dwarfed tree is stripped of 
its gray, mossy streamers to its very top. 
